For the past two years I was in charge of Movie Mania, an initiative of Emory University’s Psychoanalytic Institute which brings together analysts, students and local cinema-goers. Since 1992 Movie Mania has maintained an active community presence in the city of Atlanta by organizing movie screenings every year, followed by discussions with local psychoanalysts. The initiative started by a group of newly graduated psychoanalysts from the Institute (including our former director Dr. Robert Paul) with a view to sustain psychoanalytic engagement and development outside the classroom. Over the years and in the hands of many different organizers, Movie Mania has evolved into a relaxed, creative and intellectual space for bridging the gaps between psychoanalysis and the general public.
Past movie screenings:
Likened to a punk Restoration dark comedy, Yorgos Lanthimos’s film, The Favourite, features the triad familiar to psychoanalytic theory. But instead of the Oedipal triangle where the father holds the whip, here is a triangle of women acting out their sado-masochistic fantasies: Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough; Abigail, the Baroness Masham; and Anne, the Queen of three nations vying for their own resolutions, England, Scotland, and Ireland. From the music to the costumes, to the cinematography, the film overflows with envy, seduction, torment, and rivalry. But who is seducing whom? And is there any resolution to be had from this triangle?
Bio: Noëlle McAfee is a professor of philosophy and the director of the Psychoanalytic Studies Program at Emory University. She has taught and published extensively in the areas of psychoanalysis, political theory, feminist theory, and continental philosophy. Her books include Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis (Columbia 2019), Democracy and the Political Unconscious (Columbia 2008); Julia Kristeva (Routledge 2003); Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship (Cornell 2000); and the co-edited anthology, Democratizing Deliberation. She is also the co-editor of the Kettering Review, published by the Kettering Foundation, and an editor of the feminist section of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Past Movie Screenings:
Stephanie Koziej, PHD 